A Rock and a Hard Place
by Starfirefic
Summary: The same events from 2.01 as "Sum of the Parts" Cal trying to bring RJ to the surface , but from Gillian's viewpoint. What's going through her head on the other side of that door? WARNINGS: language nothing worse than the ep , implied violence


You reach the door just an instant too late. You're out of breath, panting, gasping for air; and your ankle is throbbing where you went over on it in the frantic dash along the corridors from the bathroom. Those corporate heels of yours are just the ticket when it comes to non-verbally communicating your business sense and professionalism, but they are _not_ designed for sprinting in.

Loker's just a heartbeat behind you - his face scrunched up in uncertainty. He doesn't realise the significance of Cal's phrasing: "I need to talk to RJ". He hasn't extrapolated it out, doesn't understand why you took off at a dead run trying to stop Cal from doing something... something you don't even want to think about. You find yourself wondering if Loker's being selectively ignorant, and then dismiss the thought as uncharitable. We all deal with things in our own way.

Regardless of what Loker has or hasn't figured out, you don't make it in time. The door's already shut when you get there - and you just hear the other lock click into place on the far side of Cal's office. You _are_ in time to hear Cal's voice, though - muffled as it is by the hard white-painted wood of the door. You hear him as he apologises softly for what he's about to do, and your heart sinks.

There's silence for a moment, and then Sophie - poor, shattered, broken little Sophie - replies, her voice thin and thready. It's filled with confusion and the first beginnings of betrayal. No surprise there. Cal's supposed to be helping her. He'd promised her she was safe with him, after all. Promised her that he'd help her - that he'd help all the fragmented shards of people who inhabit her head. Instead he's locked her in a closed room, trapped her like a wounded animal, cut off all her escape routes, and is no doubt using every means within his power to make her feel iike a victim again. The psychologist in you knows she's got to be close to panic.

And then you hear it through the hard, solid surface of the door. "Take your clothes off." And you realise, as your throat tightens, that he hadn't been using _every_ means. Not even close.

His voice is quiet, but it's filled with a dark menace you can feel clearly, even from behind the thick, reassuring protection of the door. You can only imagine how much worse it would feel if you were in there with him. Your stomach lurches. You know he's willing to do what needs to be done, willing to make the hard choices... but you can't believe - don't want to believe - that even he would be willing to risk the consequences if this all goes wrong.

"Take your clothes off, you dirty, filthy _whore_." Oh no. God, no. He wouldn't. He's effectively threatening her with _rape_. How much further is he going to push this?

You stand there, frozen. Unable to move, to think, unable even to breathe. Nothing you've ever learned gives you any idea of how you're supposed to manage this - or even whether you should. Everything in you that trained as a healer, a counsellor, a human being with an ounce of compassion tells you it needs to stop, and stop now - not just for Sophie's sake, but for Cal's. You know he'll only see it as doing what necessity demands, and he compartmentalises better than anyone you've ever known in your life; but even he can't go this far and remain unaffected by it. Sophie can't be more than a couple of years older than Emily, for God's sake. And if he destroys her? He won't forgive himself. Ever.

At the same time, if he doesn't bring RJ out, you'll lose your chance of ever finding out what happened in that hotel room. The way things are going, Sophie could end up on charges of hindering a police investigation because she can't tell them what Tricia saw. Worst case scenario, they might even assume she did it, which could end up breaking her just as effectively. You're between the proverbial rock and the hard place. Whatever you do could destroy her.

Sophie's whimpering now - her high-pitched, panicked moans bring you back into the moment. There's just one word, repeated over and over and over: no, no, no, no, no. You don't need to see what's happening behind the door to know how she's reacting. Her eyebrows will have climbed halfway up her forehead - her eyes will be wide, the whites clearly visible around her irises: the classic markers of fear. Cal knows what he's doing, damn him. Right in this moment, you hate him for it.

Maybe those whimpers are what makes him accept there's a point he's not prepared to go beyond; or perhaps he realises that, to someone with Sophie's history - someone with an alter like Jessie - rape is most likely something she's had to live through so many damn times already that she can probably survive it one more time without RJ's help. Whatever the reason, Cal switches tack, and suddenly, instead of whimpering, you can hear her choking.

And just above the wet, strangled, gasping noises, you can hear him hissing at her, telling her how vile she is, how disgusting, how no-one's there to help her, no-one's ever going to help her. You hear him threatening to kill her right then and there. And somehow _that's_ the thing that does it for you - the thing that frees you to act; and you find yourself banging frantically on the door, shouting at him to open up; and when that doesn't work, you're sending Loker off for the master key you would have brought with you in the first place if you'd just been thinking straight instead of panicking.

And it's not till later on - once it's all over, when Emily walks into the room to give him something, and his eyes light up before they suddenly shadow - that you see the knowledge of all the ways it _could_ have gone wrong flicker over his face before he ruthlessly pushes it down. It's gone so quickly you could almost believe you'd imagined it; but you're as good at what you do, in your own way, as he is, and you _know_ what you saw. Even if you hadn't, you know him. He's not the cold-hearted bastard he pretends to be.

It might be easier for you if he was.


End file.
